Hallelujah
by Countess Verona Dracula
Summary: Five one-shots, each focusing on a different Watchman and a different verse of the song "Hallelujah". 1st: Ozymandias. 2nd: The Comedian. 3rd: Silk Spectre II. 4th: Rorschach. 5th: Nite Owl II.
1. The Baffled King

**Disclaimer** - Well, if I was a megalomaniacal pseudo-Christ figure, I would create a fake alien to scare all of you into saying that I own this. But I'm not so I'll say that I don't own _Watchmen_ or the song "Hallelujah".

**Rating** - K+

**Summary** - Adrian tries to convince Jon that he's done the right thing.

**A/N-- **Well, I'm officially addicted the fan fiction again! This is my third foray into the fandom of _Watchmen_ and was inspired by my near obsession (okay, full on obsession) with the soundtrack from the movie - in particular, with the song "Hallelujah" by Leonard Cohen, which has a couple of verses I haven't heard in any other version of the fabulous song.

This fic will be several one-shots, each focusing on a different character and a different verse of the song. They will vary in time period, with some pre-GN/movie, some during the GN/movie, and others post-GN/movie, and also in rating (so pay attention, kiddies!), and will go in the order of the verses. I've tried to give each verse its due and likewise each Watchman, but one of each has been slighted - the fourth verse (_There was a time you let me know…_) and Dr. Manhattan. That's because both are featured in my other one-shot _Unquantifiable Abstracts_ and I didn't want to recycle the concepts I'd already explored. Plus, he'll be featured in this one! But if you like, hop one over to _UA _and get the full picture.

Here goes nothing!

* * *

_The Baffled King_

Adrian Veidt is twenty years old when they tell him that the Superman exists. He remembers sitting in front of his TV screen, wide-eyed with awe and wondering what they will think of it in India, where the gods are already blue. Not a year later, he (Ozymandias, that is) is granted the pleasure of meeting the man who was Jon Osterman. Static electricity jolts through his palm when they shake hands and this creature they call Dr. Manhattan tells him that it was interesting to meet him. He doesn't particularly like being called interesting, like he's a specimen pinned to a board. Years later, of course, Jon will call him the world's smartest termite - but that is not now.

Six years later he has decided that the world's problems are too small for him to tackle alone and so he calls together everyone else who's crazy enough to put on a mask and try and do something about it. Dr. Manhattan is there, serene, expressionless, with a woman on his arm. Their meeting appears to be a failure, but despite Blake's dire warnings they decide to go through with the plan anyway. Actually, he has Blake to thank for the beginnings of his grand plan - the cynic's words strike a deep chord with him. It's ironic that Blake is also the first to die for his plan, and even more ironic that Blake's death might just prove its downfall, too - but that is not now.

He wonders if Jon would agree with his musings on Blake's importance. They used to spend long hours debating the nature of time and existence together. For the first time, he feels like he has a peer, and as his grand plan takes form he tries to train himself to think like Jon thinks, in past-present-future instead of just one at a time. He draws on the past and he acts on the present and he plans for the future. He wants to tell Jon what he's planning, and he's on the verge of doing so, when he sees that look in his eyes - he's being _interesting_ again. He doesn't like that there's someone who knows more than him. He doesn't like that Jon is drifting further and further out of orbit, like human affairs have lost their gravitational pull. He wants to lecture Jon, tell him that even though they stand above the common man they must hold his interest forever in their hearts, because that is their duty as Supermen.

So he decides that he will be Jon's downfall. He will prove himself more than an interesting specimen. Note by note he begins to build his symphony, takes Jon's power for his own, poisons those he loves. He begins to imagine faces - fat ones, skinny ones, old ones, young ones, male ones, female ones - and repeats a single statistic over and over again. Millions to save billions.

He feels no doubt at first, although he schools himself to humility. Pride comes before the fall, of course. He regrets the day that he must begin to cloud Jon's mind to hide the future with him. He wants to know if it will all work out - but he must keep going forward, note by note, orchestrating peace. When Napoleon fell they created a grand 'Concert of Europe'; when Dr. Manhattan falls, he will create a concert of the world.

Now Blake is dead. He flatters himself that this is justice served, but then a man who fancies himself justice personified starts following the trail of blood, and soon it's not just Jon that must be betrayed but Rorschach too. He regrets neither. This is for the greater good, and nothing must stand in his way - not Gordian knots. Not friends. He does feel sorrow to see Jon finally snap. In twenty-five years, he's never heard him raise his voice once. But he must fall, or this arms race will continue. He's certain that Jon will understand. Millions to save billions.

Then - at last! - he's done it. He's saved the world. He weeps with joy to know that he has accomplished his mission. After twenty-five long years of worry and debate, he has done the impossible. Enemies are becoming friends and there is peace, and a brighter future. At last, humankind can transcend itself and be what it was meant to be. He expects that Jon will understand why it had to be done this way - after all, Alexander cut the Gordian knot with a sword, not with a treaty - but instead he is met with a vengeful God, with the terror of Mozart's _Dies irae_, and desperately he tries to defeat the one man he ever really related to. It doesn't work. This is when Jon tells him he is the world's smartest termite.

But then he turns the TVs on. Ah, yes, the power of the television. It told him that the Superman existed all those years ago and now it tells the Superman that what he's really fighting against is world peace. Those tiny glass boxes transfix all of them and bathe him in the glow of glory, and all of them give in. All of them but Rorschach, of course, stubborn sociopath that he is. He almost feels pity for him when he goes out into the snow, when Jon follows him. Funny, he's the only man that Dr. Manhattan really killed that day.

He has retreated to meditate and allows himself to think that he is a god - like Rameses, like Jon. He is Shiva, the creator and the destroyer. And yet when his fellow deity steps into the room and regards him with those solemn white eyes he feels his heart seize up.

"I'm so sorry that your name had to be dragged through the mud for this, Jon," he says. "But it was a necessary sacrifice, surely you can see that. We each had to make sacrifices for this - it's why we're heroes, isn't it?"

"Everyone had to make sacrifices but you, Adrian. Or am I mistaken?" His question is nonchalant, almost. Almost. The toy universe whirls between them.

"I've made myself see their faces - every day I see their faces. And I _am_ sorry about your - your involvement - " Suddenly, words are inadequate. This man was his peer - his only peer. And he has made him a murderer.

"By involvement do you perhaps mean my betrayal? The destruction of those I love? The fact that not five minutes ago you tried to kill me?" Jon shakes his head, casting his light this way and that on the room around him. "You say that you, too, have made sacrifices, Adrian, but whose name will stand on the monuments in twenty years? Surely not mine, or Rorschach's, or Dan's, or Laurie's. Whose name will it be, Adrian?"

He turns to leave, and he knows that if he doesn't stop him now he will never get another chance to speak to him again.

"Then you can see it, Jon? You can see my new world?"

He says nothing, does not move, is perhaps already eons and lightyears away from this moment.

"In the end, I did the right thing, didn't I?"

The man who was Jon Osterman turns, and smiles, and steps forward into the toy universe between them.

"Nothing ends. Nothing ever ends."

And then he's gone, and Adrian is alone.

In the years that follow, every so often, he thinks back on these words. It is always at the moments of his greatest glory - when he presides over charity banquets to benefit the reconstruction, when he is shaking hands with prime ministers, when he is standing in his office looking down on his blossoming new world - that he hears Jon's soft tenor in his ear, warning him.

He still convinces himself that he's triumphed, even when he hears those words. But then, strangely, human nature fails to change, and the notes of his symphony grow sour, until one day he's standing in his office with the morning copy of the New York Times in his hands. The first words of the headline article read "_Tonight, a Comedian died in New York..._" They'd surfaced before, of course, but never in so reputable a newspaper and never during an election, and never the morning after a devastating terrorist attack. He doesn't understand any of it; he'd handed humanity peace on a silver platter and now he was watching them tear it to shreds, and he simply couldn't understand why. Then Jon's words ring in his ear.

Soon they summon him to stand before a jury of his peers and answer for what he's done. He finds the choice of words strange - he didn't think he had any peers, not even in the U.S. Senate, and he thinks of telling them they should summon Jon to preside if they want his peers to judge what he's done. He's discovered a sense of humor in the last few days. He knows why Jon was smiling when he left. It's because in the end, he really was _interesting_. And it's because his words are a sword that cuts both ways. Rorschach's quest for justice never ended, and neither will his quest for peace - they will chase each other endlessly, a snake devouring its own tail, from here to Kingdom Come. He is both the world's smartest man and the world's smartest termite. He is Ozymandias, King of Kings, and he is nothing.

So when they ask the baffled king what he has to say for himself, all he says is this:

"Nothing ends. Nothing ever ends."

* * *

_Now I've heard there was a secret chord_

_That David played, and it pleased the Lord_

_But you don't really care for music, do you?_

_It goes like this:_

_The fourth, the fifth_

_The minor fall, the major lift_

_The baffled king composing Hallelujah_

_

* * *

_

**A/N--** As you can see, I persist in refusing to choose either comicverse or movieverse; the scene where Jon speaks privately to Adrian in Karnak is in the GN but not in the movie, but I much prefer the movie's version of Adrian's plot than the comic's version, so I used that instead. I also didn't use the dialogue from the GN - save for Adrian's question about whether or not he did the right thing.

Let me know what you think, especially about whether you think the song excerpts should go at the beginning or the ending (for some weird reason my instinct is telling me the ending, but I could just be going insane). I'll get the next chapter up soon - it's going to be about the dear old Comedian.


	2. Her Beauty and the Moonlight

**Disclaimer** - If I was the Comedian, I would say "No, I don't own _Watchmen_ or 'Hallelujah'" but would really be spelling it Y-E-S. But I spell it N-O, so I don't own either of them.

**Rating** - Rated T for language (including the F-word, because I just couldn't stop him) and sexuality (including allusions to rape).

**Summary**- In the end, it was Sally who broke Eddie, not the other way around.

**A/N--** Wow, I'm thrilled by the response, you guys! Thanks to everyone who reviewed - _Raven Aorla, Animefangirl2, NeoMatrix66612, CaleighoMeer, and Girlycard666_ - and to everyone else who read. You keep me going!

This installment probably falls a little bit more into the movieverse- in it, Eddie and Sally have their affair before the Minutemen split up rather than afterwards. I trust you'll see why I did this by the end. Also, the movie leaves the nature of Sally and Larry's relationship up in the air at this time, so I took liberties with it.

**

* * *

**

_Her Beauty and the Moonlight_

The first time Eddie saw her, he thought, well, shit, that's what a _woman_ looks like. Not the stupid kind that fainted at the sight of blood. No, she was an Amazon in silk. And from that first moment, she wasn't his.

Oh, she struck up a friendship with all the other guys, teasing them for all they were worth, swapping battle stories with them, revoking all their attempts at flirting. Everyone's except Hooded Justice's, of course. She flirted with him so much that it was a wonder that no one else on the planet but him seemed to get that he was as queer as a three dollar bill. A woman like Sally Jupiter wouldn't act like that with the man she loved. Oh, he saw who she really was, when the shit hit the fan out there on the streets and she didn't hold back.

Of course that was exactly the problem. He knew who she really was and he tried to talk to the real her. He first tried to ask her out after a particularly bad fight, put his hand on her waist while pretending to help her up. But of course it came out like some damn line and she just slapped him in that playful way of hers.

"No, Eddie. You know I've gotta go home and set my hair, you dog. You think I look this pretty _naturally_?"

"Oh, darlin', I bet you look even prettier _au naturale_." His voice got low. He knew women loved that husky growl. He even tossed in a bit of French, for Chrissakes. How could she refuse?

"Ed_die_, stop it," she laughed again. She could say so many things just by saying his name. He never knew so much meaning was lurking in two syllables, like muggers dark alleyways. She always said 'yes' when she said his name. He knew and she knew it and he was more than willing to wait until she really said it.

The next time he asked her out was after a charity ball where she was holding court with rapt reporters, and she was flirting with all of them too, damn little tease, refusing to comment on the nature of her relationship with Hooded Justice except to say that the reason he had to wear a hood was because he was quite an animal under there.

"I'm quite an animal too, doll," he whispers to her when they're dancing.

"Oh, that's no secret," she grins. "Isn't this a swell event? Look how many people came just to see us. And all that money going to the women's shelter? We're really doing good."

"I could do good for you, Sal," he responds.

"No, Eddie. I've gotta leave with HJ."

"You call him that even in the sack?"

Her pretty pale face flushes and she ends the dance early. "That's none of your concern."

"Jesus, I'm sorry!" He says, catching her arm, maybe just a bit too roughly. "Maybe you could leave with me some other time, huh?"

"Eddie," she says, quietly. _Yes, just say __**yes**_, he's thinking. "Eddie, let go of my arm."

He lets her go. This is when he starts to think he might be hearing things when he hears 'yes' in her voice.

Soon she's all he can think about. He's out on the streets beating the shit out of crooks just so he can stop seeing her face. He buys a pin-up of her and then tears it up because he can't stand the fact that other men get off to the sight of those coy eyes. Then he buys another one because he likes to pretend he's coming home to her. He gets cheap hookers and makes them have sex with him like dogs, their faces turned away, so he can pretend they're her. And every time she says his name he pretends it's 'yes'.

One day, after a particularly tough night, they all regroup together before going home. He's looking for a place to change and happens on her instead, in her bustier and garters and boots and nothing else, looking over her shoulder at him in surprise. At first she says nothing. The moonlight drifts in through the window and lands on her bare shoulders and he knows he couldn't speak if his goddamn life depended on it. All he wants is _her,_ on this floor, in this moonlight.

"Eddie, I'm changing," she says, a bit too late to really play the shocked virgin. "Could you close the door?"

"Sorry," he mutters, and leaves. He gets two hookers that night and neither of them satisfies. Pin-up doesn't work either. That's when he realizes he doesn't just want her for the sex. That's when he realizes that he's really lost.

Then there's that day. That day that he'll never live down or live past. He doesn't make any excuses about what happened. He got a little bit too much to drink and a little bit too tired of waiting for her. He wanted it to be over. He _wanted_ her to hate him if only so there was no possibility she'd love him, just because he didn't think he could handle being loved by a woman like her. He wanted to break her before she broke him.

That's why he's laughing when Hooded Justice comes in. It's just all such a goddamn _joke_ - the fake queer boyfriend coming in to beat up the would-be rapist who's so in love with this woman who dresses up in lingerie and fights crime that he doesn't know what else to do with himself. He's had the name Comedian for a while but this moment takes the cake. This is when he really starts to see the funny side of things.

The joke gets better too. They don't kick him out of the Minutemen. Apparently it's okay to try and rape someone but not okay to be a lesbo, who'd have thunk it? He lays low on his own for a while, gives her space. Convinces himself that he's not coming back at all.

…but he can't stay away and he knows it.

So he goes to the place where she's shacking up with Schexnayder, intending on apologizing for what he did and asking if they can still be friends or some other bullshit. He just really hopes she hates him. He hopes she takes another really good swing at him like she did that day. Instead, when she opens the door, her eyes fight between angry and sad, and she just stands aside to let him in.

"Larry's not here," she says, a little lamely, once he's inside.

"What the hell would I want with Larry, Sal?" He says. She laughs. Not a very pretty laugh, but she laughs all the same, and goes to the kitchenette.

"Do you want some coffee? Funny, I've never seen you in the daytime. Do you even drink coffee?"

"Don't bother," he says, catching her hand where it sits on the handle of the coffee pot. She tenses up but doesn't move and he's reminded of a dying baby bird he held in his hands as a child. He lowers his voice and speaks again: "You can cut the crap with me, Sal. I want you to always know that you can tell me _anything_, no holds barred. We spend enough time running around pretending to be people we're not."

She doesn't turn to face him but instead pulls her hand away from his and walks towards the living room. "Fine. Then I hate you for what you did. I hate you for making me feel stupid and powerless. I hate you for being a stupid brute."

It should hurt him to hear that but it doesn't. She's making herself say it. She sounds like a bad actress in a high school play.

"You should hate me," he says, approaching her.

"Well I do!" She shouts at last, turning to face him, her hands balled into fists. "It's all - it's all - it's all just so _stupid_." She's started to cry and he reaches out for her but she pushes his hand away. "_No_. I am _not_ crying for you anymore."

She walks away again, this time towards the bedroom, and he follows her. Isn't this what their whole dance has been? She says no and pushes him away and then stands there and waits for him to follow. Isn't this what it's all been leading towards?

"You're right, Sally," he says. "It's a whole big world of stupid out there. Hell, you and me and all the rest of the Minutemen, we're probably just captains of the stupid parade, because we're the ones dumb enough to think we can knock some sense into people."

He should be able to add something to the end of that, something that brings everything together and proves to her that the world really isn't such a bad place and he's not a bad guy and she's not crazy. But this isn't the kind of world you can wrap up neatly with a bow and slap a 'happily ever after' on. So he just sits there silently and waits for her to respond. She does, after a while, by turning around and, for the first time since they met, taking a step towards him.

"Come over here," she says. "And kiss me."

"What?"

"You heard me. Come over here and kiss me."

"Sally - "

"I just want this to be over, Eddie," she says. "I just want this whole damn charade to be over."

She closes the distance between them and kisses him, hard, and when he opens his mouth to say something she takes it as an invitation and just keeps kissing him, pulling him towards the bedroom. He keeps trying to stop her but she won't listen. He tries to love her, to touch her softly, to treat her right, but she won't let him. She just silences him any way she can, and when she's finally spread out on the bed in all of her beauty, he can't help himself, even though it's sunlight that bathes her and not moonlight like he'd hoped. She says his name at the very end - but she never says yes.

"I - " he starts to say when they're laying side by side.

"Don't say it," she refuses to open her eyes.

"Well, I do."

She doesn't say anything for a while, but she does let him pull her close to his side and rests her head on his shoulder. She smells like woman and sex and expensive perfume and all the things he'll never have.

"Just for an hour," she says at last, quietly, like a child admitting to a nightmare. "Let's pretend that you really do love me."

For an entire hour he lays quietly at her side, just breathing the same breaths she breathes, and feels peace for the first time in his life.

"We don't have to pretend, Sal," he says when she stands up to dress. "Who knows - we could - "

"No, Eddie," she replies. "I've got big plans. You know that. And we both know you're not that kind of man. This afternoon is all we'll ever have," she hesitates, and her voice is softer when she speaks again. "And I'm glad. I'm very glad."

She goes to the bathroom and doesn't reappear. He gets dressed and leaves. They don't speak to each other at meetings or on missions anymore. The others assume it's because of the whole rape thing. See, told you the joke got better - it's not. And in the end, it doesn't just end whatever it was they had. It ends the Minutemen, too. They're like bulls in a china shop, destroying everything around them and then sitting back and watching the pieces fall and wondering what went wrong.

Then she's pregnant, and even he's smart enough to be able to count on his fingers. She doesn't even give him the chance to make an honest woman out of her - she marries Schexnayder before he can so much as wrap his mind around the word 'father'. He only tries to talk to her about the baby once, at her big retirement dinner.

"No, Eddie," is all she says before she walks away, out of his life.

He sees the announcements in the paper later, like anyone else who can read. Laurel Jane Schexnayder. God, what an awful last name. He crosses it out and writes Laurel Jane Blake. Then he throws the newspaper away. But are you ready for the really big punch line? When he's in Vietnam and there's a woman demanding that he act like a father, he shoots her. If he can't be her father than he won't be anyone's father. It doesn't excuse him. He knows that.

He keeps a picture of her in his closet, and he likes to look at it when he puts on the mask and gets ready to go out in service of his country. She has the most beautiful smile he's ever seen, even more beautiful than her mother's. He knows why Sally got so angry at him when he tried to talk to her - not because she thought he'd try to hurt her the way he hurt her mother all those years ago, but because there's a spark in her that was never in either of them. Somehow, against all odds, she's come out okay. She has a chance at happiness that neither of her parents ever had. Both of them were destined to destroy the things they loved, because they didn't know any other way to love them. There's no rhyme or reason or grand scheme behind it. It's just a crazy fucked-up world, that's all, and only some people can make it out okay.

He's glad she's going to make it out okay. He knows that when Veidt comes for him. But when he shoves him up against the wall and makes him break the glass over that old pin-up, the only woman he's ever wanted to come home to, he thinks of her, and of that afternoon, and what she said.

"It's all a joke," he manages to tell Veidt, but he doesn't think he gets it. Guy never had a sense of humor. Then he's sailing through the air and remembering the moonlight on her shoulders and thinking if only she could've loved him, he could've been something, he could've been someone -

Curtains.

* * *

_Your faith was strong but you needed proof_

_You saw her bathing on the roof_

_Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you_

_She tied you to a kitchen chair_

_She broke your throne and she cut your hair_

_And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah_

* * *

**A/N--** Wow, I actually really enjoyed writing that. I hope you enjoyed my take on Eddie and Sally - it certainly was interesting to write. Let me know what you thought!

Coming up next: the second Silk Spectre and the men in her life. Has she come out as okay as her dad thought she would?


	3. Not a Victory March

**Disclaimer--** If I was Laurie, I would say that I own this then leave it when it started duplicating itself to get more done than just me, and get together with something else.

…actually, I _would_ take Dan over Jon. Oh well, still don't own anything!

**Rating** - T (for references to smoking and sex, and some mild language)

**Summary** - Laurie doesn't like not knowing where her life is going.

**A/N--** Today's selection is actually from the Rufus Wainwright rendition of "Hallelujah"; it doesn't appear in the Leonard Cohen version, sadly. Thanks to everyone who reviewed the last chapter: Animefangirl2, Raven Aorla, Girlycard666, Silential, and Rocksey. It means a lot!

This chapter goes out to Nite Owl85, Carpe Ominous, lesaubergines, and Axia West, fellow Dan/Laurie fans (we do exist!). Thanks for your support! And, also, for my Darling, for being the Dan to my Laurie (and not complaining when I ask you for about the millionth time whether you've read my latest fanfiction). You have my thanks and love, as always.

* * *

_Not a Victory March_

"Where are my cigarettes?" she demands when she gets downstairs to the kitchen, where Dan is sitting quietly as you please at the table, reading the newspaper.

"Good morning, honey," he says absently, but she knows he heard exactly what she said.

"Dan, _where_ are my cigarettes?" She demands again. He hid them in the pantry last time, didn't he? She starts rattling through plates and cups but doesn't see any of her beloved white packs. Maybe it was in the flour canister this time? She throws the top off and starts digging through it.

"You slipped again, you know. You should be calling me Sam," he looks up from the paper. "Good Lord, Laurie, you're covering yourself in flour! Don't we have to leave for the airport in like half an hour?"

"I don't care. I know you hid them in here."

"No, as a matter of fact, I didn't. That's where I hid them the third time you tried to quit," his voice is maddeningly mild as he pries the top of the canister from her fingers and replaces it. "This time we personally flushed every single cigarette together, remember?"

"You didn't keep _any_?" she asks wildly. Maybe one had fallen between the cracks of the sofa? She dashes into the living room to check. There just has to be a cigarette somewhere in this damn house…

"Laurie, what's going on?" He asks from the doorway to the living room.

"You slipped. Twice." She says as she throws the cushions onto the floor. Nothing. She moves on to the bookcase. "I'm _Sandra_ now, don't you remember? Isn't that who you're marrying tomorrow? Sandra?"

"You know that's not true." He's got that wounded sound in his voice that makes her alternately want to strangle one or both of them. He walks over to her and puts a hand on her shoulder, then tries to touch her cheek, but she turns away. Has she still got some hiding in the bathroom…? "What's wrong?" he insists, following her.

"What's wrong is that I want a goddamn cigarette and I can't find one! Why did you listen to me when I told you to throw them out, huh? You _know_ I never quit! Jon always knew that! He always stood by and just let me go back to it without saying a damn thing, but you, oh no, you just _have_ to throw them all away…"

He stops following her, and that's when she knows she's gone too far.

"Well, I'm not Jon."

"I know that, baby, it's just - " she turns around and sees that he's not there.

Fear cripples her and for a moment she just stands in the doorway cursing herself in every way she can. She had to go for his one weak spot, the one thing he's ashamed of. He's not Jon. Every time she says his name it's like someone's punched him in the gut. And here she is, hammering away the day before their wedding.

_Jesus Christ, I'm getting married._ _I, me, Laurie Juspeczyk - shit, I slipped again, I'm not Laurie, I'm Sandra - but I am still getting married and I -_

This is why she needs a cigarette. More importantly, this is why she needs him.

She walks back to the living room and he's sitting there silently. The remote is in his hand but he's neglected to use it, and the empty glass eye of the TV stares back at him. She sits down next to him, close enough that their legs touch, and stares at his hands.

"Look, can I tell you a story?" she asks.

"Shoot."

"There was this one time, a few years back, '78, I think, it was after the Keene Act - but anyway, I walked into this jewelry store on a whim. I stood there and I was looking at all the bracelets and necklaces and earrings, and finally I got to the rings - and I was just sort of stuck there, staring at them like I'd never seen one in my life. This sales guy came up to me and he asked if I wanted to see one and I said sure, so he took out the most expensive one of course and slipped it onto my finger and I just couldn't take my eyes off of it. He asked me if I liked it and I told him I did, and when he put it back he winked at me and said 'if the big guy ever comes in, we'll let him know which one you want. You just make sure you send him our way.'

"I couldn't help but leave grinning, imagining all these proposals he could invent - but then I had to go home. Home to Rockefeller. To Jon and his work. I thought about telling him about everything - but I just couldn't. That was when I realized that I was trapped. Oh, we still said we were in love then, so I told myself I didn't care about marriage or any of those stupid white picket fence things - but, hell, it'd been eleven years, and there was no ring on my finger, and there was never going to be, and I wasn't the Silk Spectre anymore and I had no idea where my life was going, and Jon wouldn't tell me. I wanted to cry myself to sleep that night but I didn't let myself. When I started living with Jon, my mother just looked at me and sighed and told me I'd made my bed. And there I was, lying in it," she happens to glance at the clock. "Shit, my mother. Don't we have to pick her up?"

"That's what I was trying to tell you earlier," he sighs, taking off his glasses and running his fingers through his hair. "Look, before we go, I just need to ask you one question. Do you want to marry me tomorrow?"

His words bring back another day, a year ago, at the beginning of 1986. They had gone out to get Chinese food and were on their way back to their new apartment when Dan took an abrupt left turn into an alleyway instead of making a right down the block. She'd followed him, rather confused, asking what was going on, but he refused to meet her eyes, and muttered something about trusting him. They kept going for a while until they reached a fire escape attached to a grimy old building that probably would've been better off if the explosions _had_ taken it out. He clambered up, cursing the takeout boxes that slowed him down, and turning back to help her once or twice. At last they stood on the rooftop, looking down over the broken city.

"I just thought it might be a nice change of scenery," he said, although his voice was just a couple of notes too high to be really sincere.

They sat side by side on the rooftop, watching the sun's final rays glance over the spires of the skyscrapers, digging into their cheap Chinese food and bemoaning the death of the Gunga Diner. Once they were done, Laurie wriggled closer to him and rested her head on his shoulder, and his arm settled comfortably around her. It was hard to believe they'd only been together for five months; it seemed so much longer than that. She was musing on this when he began to talk.

"So, you probably don't remember this building, do you?"

"Nope."

"Well, back in '77, right before the Keene Act passed, you and I went out on patrol and stopped a robbery in that alleyway down there. Then we came and sat up here to watch the sunrise, and you were talking about how glad you'd be to give up this nonsense and settle down for a normal life. And all I could think was how much I was going to miss seeing you."

"That was when you told me your name, wasn't it?" she interrupted with a laugh. "You said it wrong, you were so embarrassed. How did it come out? Drei Danburg?"

"Well, uh, yea, it did, but that's not the point - can I finish?" He turned bright red and couldn't go on for a minute or so while she laughed at the memory of his nervousness. "Well, it's been a long time since then, but not a day went by between now and then that I didn't think of you. And now I'm lucky enough to have you - and I don't ever want to let you go again. So - "

Her heart was pounding. Ohgodohgodohgod was this really happening? It was. He was reaching into his coat pocket and pulling out a small black box, and his fingers were shaking so much that he could barely get it open.

"Laurie, will you marry me?" He managed to say at last, the look on his face a cross between love and terror that only Dan Dreiburg could master.

She answered him with a kiss that nearly knocked both of them over and left him frantically checking to make sure the ring hadn't fallen out of the box. It hadn't, but then he realized that he hadn't gone down on one knee when he asked. So, of course, he had to ask again - and this time she said yes. Wholeheartedly yes.

For a week afterwards she would ask him to repeat those words again and again - first thing in the morning, while they were watching TV, while they were working on new costumes, late at night when they were making love. But she'd never wanted him to say it the way he did now.

"Laurie, do you want to marry me tomorrow?" he repeats, doing his best to keep a level tone of voice.

"Of course I do! How could you think anything else?" she sighs. "Look, let me explain that story I told you. What I was going to say is that I never expected any of this stuff for myself, you know? And everything's still so screwed up after what happened - we have to pretend to be these different people and start these different lives and God only knows if Adrian's going to come out of nowhere and kill us one night. It just feels like I'm back in that same place again. I have no idea where my life is going, but this time I'm so happy it scares me and I just don't want to lose - "

And then he kisses her, not hard but insistently, and puts his arms around her and holds her like he'll never let her go. Even when she tries to pull back to say something, he just kisses her again, until at last she's run out of things to try and say.

"Come here," he says when he stands up from the couch, holding his hand out to her. When she takes it he pulls her up and puts one arm around her back and starts swaying back and forth, dancing with her slowly across the living room.

"There's no music," she laughs.

"So? Don't make me sing. You know how that ends."

"God, my ears are still ringing," she pauses and rests her head against his shoulder. "It won't be easy."

"Nope. And if you accuse me of making you quit smoking one more time I just might go crazy."

"Well, if you keep leaving the toilet seat up _I'll_ go crazy."

They keep dancing to the silence, imperfect and unsure and glad of it. Eventually they're not dancing so much as they are holding each other and turning in slow circles, and for the first time in weeks, Laurie feels a kind of peace descending over her. It won't be easy, but neither was dressing up as superheroes and facing the darkness of the world. They're not the kind of people that are exactly drawn to easy. And even if the hard part isn't finding love, but keeping it, and even if it's not always a victory march, she's willing to fight forever with him at her back.

"We'll be okay, you know," she says after a while.

"Oh, yea?"

"Yea. Because you're not Jon."

He smiles, and she kisses him again, and half an hour later when their clothes are strewn over the living room floor and they're weak in the afterglow, they remember that they were supposed to be at the airport twenty minutes ago. Funny thing is, when they show up late and apologize to Sally Jupiter with sheepish grins, she doesn't seem to mind that much. She just smiles and smiles, and her daughter smiles with her.

* * *

_Baby, I've been here before_

_I know this room, I've walked this floor_

_I used to live alone before I knew you_

_I've seen your flag on the marble arch_

_Love is not a victory march_

_It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah_

* * *

**A/N--** Well, that came out differently than I expected... for one thing, Dan kept trying to hijack it, Laurie didn't seem to want anything but dialogue, and the end of the verse is a bit more of a downer than I'd like, but oh well. I was trying to depict a realistic relationship, and the tension between fluff and angst was difficult to maintain. I did my best! I regret nothing! I hope you enjoyed it too. If you did, check out _Human Again_, my other Dan/Laurie one-shot, under the rated M section.

On our next episode: we head back to 1977 to see the night the infamous partnership between Nite Owl and Rorschach fell apart. What was the straw that broke the camel's back? Stay tuned...


	4. The Holy or the Broken

**Disclaimer** - If I was Rorschach, and you dared to accuse me of owning this, I would break your fingers in retribution, ask who was really behind the ownership, and then drop you down an elevator shaft. But I'm not, so I'll just settle for reminding you that I don't own it, you silly forgetful people, you.

**Rating** - T. Because it's Rorschach.

**Summary** - Rorschach and Nite Owl have different definitions of justice.

**A/N-- **Goodness, this is going by fast. We're already on our second to last chapter! Well, here it goes: my own attempt at capturing Rorschach. It's set in 1977, right around the time of the Keene Act's passage, but the parts towards the beginning are in the 60s, when they're first starting out, so Rorschach still uses normal sentence structure (!) in his dialogue.

Thanks be to those who reviewed: _Animefangirl12, CourtJester, Girlycard666, Silential, CaleighoMeer_, and _InTheBellyofTheWhale_. I hereby award you sugar cubes as a testament to your awesomeness.

* * *

_The Holy or the Broken_

He laughs the first time he reads about this new Nite Owl. Who dresses up like a bird? But then he hears that this bird man has crooks running scared. He likes it when the crooks are running scared.

The first time they run into each other it's an inevitable coincidence. The second time he knows he's being followed. This is not appreciated. But when he's confronted, the bird man (who is much taller than he expected, just as he is always shorter than his reputation) just shrugs and says:

"I thought maybe we could work together, you know."

He actually laughs at this - this is back when he still laughed, and it is a harsh brittle sound like sharpening a knife. But the bird man is persistent.

"I really think we could do good together, you know?"

Huh. Do good together. That doesn't sound so bad. Still, he says no. He likes doing things his way.

"C'mon - we could go out for drinks or something. Talk it over. I'll pay."

He snorts - this bird man is funny. "Which bar is going to a man dressed as a bird buy a man dressed as a psychological test a drink?"

"Uh… Mulroney's in Brooklyn?"

"You're serious?"

"I don't know. You're the walking psych test. You tell me, doc."

"I don't drink," he says, and disappears into the night. He's enjoying this.

When the bird man doesn't appear for a while, he thinks he's finally scared him away. Good. He didn't seem the type that would last long on this type of job anyway. He'd probably go the way of Mothman in a little while. Dressing up as an animal seemed to do that to people. These streets, this city, this world, was for people like Rorschach. People didn't belong under the mask - ideas did. He hated every minute he had to spend as Walter, who was nothing but another human, a termite in a city of termites, in a world of termites. He does not fight for them, for their petty wicked lives: he fights for Justice. People may or may not deserve her, but that is not his decision to make. He only wants to give her what _she _deserves: the punishment of those who flaunt her decrees. He delivers them to her officers, to the steps of her courthouses, within the sight of her blindfolded eyes. This is his purpose.

Sometimes, when he is Walter, he eats his lunch on a bench in the park and watches the children, and he allows himself to think that he has made their lives a little safer. Maybe if every child could grow up safe, the world could learn to grow up with them. But he must never become complacent. He looks at them and forces himself to remember his mother, and think of how many other children are out there that he must save. There are days when it seems impossible - and he begins to think of the bird man's offer. Perhaps he could save more if they worked together. But Nite Owl must come to Rorschach, not the other way around. He's the one who has to prove himself.

Months pass by and there is no sign of him, though his name is still mentioned in the papers, even in connection with some pretty big busts. He's a little peeved at one of them. He was trying to break that case himself. Was this Nite Owl following him, working off his leads? This deserves investigation. He tracks him down again.

"Evening, Rorschach," Nite Owl says, a tired edge to his voice. It's close to dawn. "What can I do for you?"

"I wanted to talk about Michael Hawley."

"Who? Oh, I busted him last week with enough cocaine on him to send him away a good, long time."

"I know. I was working the same case. Close to cracking it, too. Strange coincidence, huh?"

Nite Owl laughs. "Are you seriously implying that I was cheating off of you? What is this, second grade? Look, maybe it was just a sign that if we'd worked together, that bastard would've been locked up for life two weeks ago."

He has a point, but he doesn't want to admit it. Thankfully, the bird man does it for him.

"Look, do you know anything about a guy they call the Machine? Dresses up like a robot and robs banks?"

"Yes."

"I've been trying to find out more information on him all night. Maybe tomorrow night we could meet up back here and look for him together or at least share what we've found. Word has it that he's got a big heist planned this week and I intend to crash his little party."

"I've heard the same thing," he hesitates. "So midnight? Here?"

"Sure," Nite Owl is smiling broadly. He claps him on the shoulder. "I'm sure it'll be good working with you."

He is flustered by this gesture of camaraderie and leaves without any further comment. He only hopes the bird man doesn't talk this much when they go out.

He doesn't, thankfully. He's actually pretty good at what he does, he admits to himself. Nite Owl is young, and brash, and perhaps a bit more forgiving than he would like - but between the two of them they stop the Machine's plans and make the morning papers. Nite Owl insists on going back to his place to celebrate the next night.

"I'm telling you, this is what it's about, Rorschach," he beams, showing him the headline that credits the Machine's capture to the famed vigilantes, Rorschach and Nite Owl.

"You mean the press?"

"No - I mean what the headline says. 'Justice Served'. That's what this is about. Justice. We're going where the police can't, we're scaring the bad guys out of their holes and into the open where they can't hide. We're making a difference, we're doing good. Doesn't it feel great?"

He just snorts in response. Yes, it feels good. But he feels no need to bask in the glory. His eyes are already on the back page, flicking over a smaller article.

"Have you heard of the Underboss?" he asks.

"No. Why?"

"There's an article there linking him to the deaths of two teenage girls."

Nite Owl flips the paper around to find the article in question. "Jesus - they were only fourteen."

"Sounds like the world might need a little more justice," he says as he stands.

"It does. And that reminds me - I've got something to show you."

This is the first time the Owlship is revealed. Mere months later, after a memorable ride through the sewers on their hover bikes, the Underboss is theirs. Things are good now, and for years afterwards: as Nite Owl predicted, they do good together, and they do more good as the Watchmen. He is never quite happy, of course - there are always more dead girls in the newspaper - but he feels he is doing good.

Then it is 1975, and the name Blaire Roche joins their ranks.

He is sick for a week after what he does. He's spent so much time among lowlifes that he's finally become one of them. No - that man was a dog - he died as a dog - and even if he might have faced justice at the hands of judge and jury, it was only at the hands of an executioner that true, poetic justice could be dealt. No - there is no poetry in the world anymore.

Nite Owl can tell that something has happened. He keeps asking what's wrong. But the more and more he's pressed for answers, the less and less he knows what to say. Words start to fail him. They never meant much in the first place.

The second time he kills again he's only sick for a day. After that it stops mattering. Drug dealers, rapists, molesters, pimps. Every kind of human filth. They fall to him like wheat beneath a scythe. He does not do this when he is with Nite Owl. He knows that the bird man wouldn't understand. He can't hear the scrape of dog's teeth on a little femur. He doesn't still see the tiny pair of floral underwear. He drifts further and further from his old partner. From the others. He's never quite out of orbit, though. Why he doesn't know. None of them understand.

Then it is 1977, and the Keene Act is in the papers.

The man he kills that fateful night, when Nite Owl is with the Comedian, is a multiple rapist. He's also far too easy to find. None of these crooks pose a challenge anymore. Where are the cases he used to spend weeks cracking? Maybe that's why there are riots. They got too good at their jobs. Now there's no one left to fight but their own demons. The public doesn't seem to appreciate them taking that fight to the streets.

He takes a break from carrying the body in a quiet alley, opens his journal, and starts to write. Not about clues this time, because there are no clues anymore, but about all of them. The Watchmen. Funny, how they set themselves up to be the defenders of humanity, yet every single one of them has some trouble relating to it. Manhattan is above it. Juspeczyk has only known other masks. Veidt's only 'friend' has been dead for millennia. The Comedian just sees it as some sick joke. And himself, Rorschach - well. He's written enough about that.

Nite Owl seems to be the exception to this rule. He is happy, well-adjusted. Normal. Except for the mask. Why? He has known him for over a decade. He should know. But does it really matter? The mask is coming off soon. All the masks are coming off soon. And what will happen then? When they must face the world as nothing less than their true, human selves, what will they do?

That's for them to decide. He doesn't intend to find out.

He's within a block of the police station when he realizes that he has familiar company. He waits in a nearby alleyway for Nite Owl to follow him in.

"Rorschach," he sounds tired. "I haven't seen you in days. Have you run into many of the rioters?"

He must not notice the body lying at his partner's feet. He just grunts and lets the other man take it as he will.

"I just left them. The Comedian - he told me that a bill is coming through Congress. The Keene Act. It's going to make masks illegal," he toes the trash idly. His eyes are on the ground but he still doesn't see the body. "I don't know what I think about it. Mostly good riddance, I guess."

He feels himself getting hotter. Good riddance? Over a decade of war on injustice and now just _good riddance_?

"What happened to doing good?" He growls.

"Do you call police on strike _good_?"

"Better off without the police. Corrupt."

This is a familiar spot. A sore one. "Not every cop is rotten. And what about people rioting in the streets, huh? If they don't want us, we're out of a job. This is America - "

" - rotting from the inside out. We are the only barrier - "

"How can you stand to be so hopeless?"

"At least not blind like - "

"Use a goddamn _sentence_ for once, Rorschach!"

It is silent now. A seething silence, like water just beginning to boil.

"Look, I'm sorry," Nite Owl says flatly. "It's been a long night. I need to think about everything. I guess I'll see you around sometime soon."

He starts to walk out of the alleyway, but he doesn't go the way he came. He goes towards the other end of the alley. Where the body lies. He trips over it, in fact. He curses.

"Jesus, did you see this guy? Is that why you're here? Why didn't you tell me you were working a case?" The bird man kneels down to get a closer look at him, and as he takes stock of the wounds, Rorschach feels himself getting colder and colder.

"He's a rapist. Little boys and girls."

"The guy from the paper? Wow. Who do you think killed him?"

He shouldn't feel this ashamed. It was justice. Pure and simple. He shouldn't have to lie. He doesn't lie. Lies are compromises.

"Rorschach?"

And it would be pointless to lie to him. In over a decade, they've never seen each other's faces, but that doesn't mean they can't read what little they can see. The tightening of jaw muscles. The swirl of black on white. These are as plain to them as letters on a page.

"I did."

Silence in the alleyway. As silent as the dead man at his feet.

"Did he try to kill you first?"

"Was sitting in his apartment. Watching children on the TV. Killed him before he could get himself off."

"You - you just murdered him. In cold blood," he stands up. "You _killed_ him."

"Bad man. Rapist. Would've hurt more people."

"Yea, and so would every other rapist we've stopped over the years, but we've always put them behind bars before!" He shakes his head. "You're so damn nonchalant. This can't be the first time this has happened. How long as this been going on, Rorschach?"

"Roche case."

"Oh," his tone gets a bit softer now. This angers him. He doesn't want pity. "Look, maybe this Keene Act really is for the best. Maybe - maybe all this has just been getting to you too much. You need to start having a normal life, Rorschach - we all do."

"Keene Act going to stop rapists? Murderers? Dealers? No. I will."

"If you keep going on like this, you're just going to end up as one of them!"

Anger, hot and red and dangerous as lava, floods him. He seizes the bird man by the front of his costume and shoves him against the wall.

"_What did you say_?"

"I said you're going to end up as one of them."

He hits him once, hard, in the face. Nite Owl's knee connects with his stomach. These are the only two strikes they aim against each other as enemies. Afterwards they stand there, on opposite sides of the alleyway, breathing heavily and flexing their hands. Something inside him has broken. Nite Owl - the only one who could stand his presence, who always wanted to go out for drinks afterwards, who had always wanted to do good - he'd called him a monster.

"This is not justice, Rorschach," he says quietly after a moment.

"And it would be different if a jury sentenced him to the same fate?"

He doesn't wait for an answer. Instead he just picks up the body and resumes his walk towards the police station. Nite Owl follows - he was always following.

"There's another life, Rorschach - there's another life out there. You just have to give it a chance."

He says nothing. He just dumps the body down in front of the police station and then takes out his journal and tears out a page, scribbling something on it.

"Look, my name - my real name is Dan Dreiburg. And if this act goes through I want you to come find me. We'll figure this out. I can't just give up on you. You were meant to be something better than this."

He tries to lay a hand on his shoulder but he shrugs him roughly away. He does not exist to him after this night. There is no Nite Owl - not anymore. He is dead. Another casualty of weakness and pity.

"Hey, come on - will you at least consider it?"

They are back to so many years ago, when he is telling him that they could do good together. He wishes it had been true. He wishes they could've fought to the end together. But in perhaps it is better to end as it began - alone. He kneels down. Pins the note to the rapist's coat. Walks away. The man who was his partner calls his name. Steps forward. Picks up the note. And reads:

"Never!"

* * *

_You say I took the name in vain_

_But I don't even know the name_

_And if I did, well, really, what's it to you?_

_There's a blaze of light in every word_

_It doesn't matter which you heard_

_The holy or the broken Hallelujah_

* * *

A/N-- Whew, finally! That one took me a while. I hope you enjoyed it.

There has been some debate amongst my friends and I about Dan's attitudes towards killing criminals - he certainly seems to show no mercy to the ones he and Laurie fight in the alleyway - but I'd like to think that he was against it in anything but a life or death situation. Hence his uncertainty about Rorschach's actions here.

Alas, we are almost at the end! Next chapter will be our last, and it will focus on dear old Dan - on why he put the mask on, and why he ultimately decided to take it off.


	5. Hallelujah

**Disclaimer**- If I was Dan, and you asked me if I owned this, I would take off my glasses and clean them and try to awkwardly explain why I don't. However, I don't wear glasses. So I'll just say that I don't own anything.

**Rating**- T for some mild language and very brief sexual references.

**Summary** - Dan doesn't want to give up the mask - but he has no choice.

**A/N** - We have reached the end of my harebrained little scheme! I do hope you enjoy it. You could almost consider the end as following directly on from the end of the last chapter - but, because I can't help myself, there's a lot of stuff intervening before then.

Thanks to those who've reviewed: Animefangirl12, Raven Aorla, Nellodee, Isis11, and Silential. You guys are awesome!

* * *

_Hallelujah_

When he is 8, Dan Dreiburg realizes for the first time that knights in shining armor don't exist anymore. His parents have tried to explain this to him over and over again, but he can't seem to understand it. How can something be, and then cease to be? He recovers from his initial disappointment when he realizes that he's going to be the one who brings back knights in shining armor. When he tells his father this, he just snorts and says something about a system of some kind or other.

"I am going to do it, you know," he'd huffed with the full force of an eight year old's pride.

"Son," his father said dryly. "You're going to be a banker."

Dan Dreiburg hates money.

Of course, eventually he understands that his father was talking about the feudal system, and reads all about the socioeconomic conditions in which knights lived, and about some of their more dubious activities in the Middle East. Eventually he understands how something can be, and then cease to be... for a time at least. Even when he's in college he can't shake this feeling that such a potent symbol for justice, for honor, could simply vanish into the mists of history. He knows the reality fell far short of the myth... but still.

For a while he considers becoming a firefighter. Or a cop. Or, hell, even joining the army. But every time he stands outside a recruitment office he feels reality falling short of the myth again. Knights didn't fill out paperwork. They won their names on the field of glory. He is close to giving up his quest when the answer - the wonderfully simple answer - lands in his lap, in the form of a newspaper article called "_The Minutemen: Where Are They Now?_". Of course, with his vision impaired by youth and nearsightedness alike, he manages to ignore the accounts of insanity, murder, and mysterious disappearance - he even ignores the first Silk Spectre's glowing reports of her daughter's progress, unaware that this is the woman he will fall irrevocably in love with - and focuses on the story of Hollis Mason. Good, kind, down-to-earth, well-adjusted Hollis Mason.

Of course, he'd been alive when the Minutemen were around, but only towards the tail end of their downward spiral, and he remembered very little of them. His eyes were too clouded by visions of knights then. Now the two images meld together as seamlessly as bird's feathers and he sees his destiny taking shape before him. Of course he's meant to believe in knights and justice and courage - of course he's meant to have a fascination with birds of prey - he's meant to follow in Hollis Mason's footsteps.

Slowly now, careful, wouldn't want to upset Daddy Dearest. He's got to finish college first, even if his degree isn't in business at least it's still _something_. He can't break the old man's heart. He knows they already talk about him as it is, in their expensive suits and ties, drinking 20 year old scotch at the country club. They shake their head at the mention of Dreiburg's boy and say he'll amount to nothing - a fine name gone to waste.

Dan Dreiburg really, _really_ hates money.

But, to his credit, his father lets him do what he will. In fact, when he graduates from college he even encourages him to go on to his master's degrees.

"Son, I just want you to make something of yourself," he sighs.

That's another thing Dan hates. That phrase.

"What the hell does it even mean, _make_ something of yourself?" He shouts, drunk, to his roommate as they're preparing to leave the dormitories for good. "Didn't they already make me twenty-two goddamn years ago? No, I was probably immaculately conceived or something. They couldn't feel enough to have sex."

That's his biggest fear: not feeling. He can't stand the thought of suits and ties and quarterly reviews and twenty year old scotch and men shaking their heads and wives taking their bourbon with a Valium on the side. He wants to _feel_, to _live_ as owls soaring in the night did, as knights on the field of valor did. As Hollis Mason did under the hood.

Even though he wants to be brash and reckless and daring, he can't bring himself to commit the mortal sin of assuming the identity of Nite Owl without asking permission first. As his mother would put it: what _would_ Emily Post say? So he writes a letter, in the politest terms possible, asking for Hollis Mason's permission to take up the mantel, like a squire kneeling before his lord, waiting for the sword to descend on his shoulder in blessing.

When he receives it, he's beside himself with joy. He even does a rather unmanly dance across his new living room. And in-between reading and studying he begins to put his new knowledge to the test, building gadget after gadget, dream after dream, until, at last, he's ready to test his mettle.

There are plenty of mishaps - like the iron suit that breaks his arm and has him laid up for weeks, unable to go out onto the street. He's angry at himself for that one. He thought he was just starting to make headway on convincing this Rorschach fellow to work with him. After all, where was Arthur without the Round Table? He doesn't like having to lie about where he got the broken arm from, either. He tries to tell himself that it's all part of the heroism, keeping his identity safe to protect those he loves. Then he realizes that he doesn't really have anyone to protect - not after his father dies. He's more upset by that than he was prepared for. He died before they ever really knew each other.

He leaves him a lot of money. Dan Dreiburg doesn't mind the money so much now. It's with this money that he buys his new house and the subway beneath, and builds the Owlship. It's with the Owlship that he and Rorschach mount their war on crime and injustice. He is a strange partner, to say the least, but a partner nonetheless. He understands, in some manner, what wearing the mask means, even if he won't talk about it. Still, he won't tell him who he is underneath the mask. Dan tells himself that this is again part of the heroism - that they are keeping each other safe by keeping their identities secret - but every night it just leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. He doesn't even know his only friend's name.

But when they're out there, when they're way over their heads and there's every chance he's not coming home that night, he doesn't regret a damn thing. He feels more alive in those moments than anyone anywhere has ever felt, he imagines. It doesn't matter if the rest of life pales in comparison after the high of risking it - it doesn't matter if that high feels dangerously like an addiction. He is alive, and he is making a difference.

He's overjoyed when he's invited to join the Watchmen, and by sheer force of will alone he overrides the Comedian's sour comments at the first meeting. Ozymandias is right. They _can_ save this world.

(One day, the tables will turn in an icy land, and he will agree more with the Comedian than with Ozymandias. But that day is far in the future.)

He turns a blind eye to all the problems the Watchmen face, ignoring the fact that no one but him can seem to stand Rorschach, or the fact that Dr. Manhattan has effectively ruled the rest of them obsolete. He tells himself each night when he sits on top of a roof looking down on the world he must save that this is his Camelot. It is no shining city on a hill, but it is his nonetheless. It is worth saving, he tells himself.

And what would his Camelot be with a Guenevere? He knows that she's too young for him, he knows that she's Manhattan's girl, but he finds himself falling in love with her anyway. He loves her fire and her dedication, even if she denies enjoying her life as a superhero if he speaks to her about it. The look in her eyes when they're back to back in a drug dealer's den speaks volumes anyway. She loves this and they all know it. He loves her, and everyone but her seems to know. He knows he'll never have her, but that's the point of courtly love, isn't it?

It's around 1975 that everything starts to go wrong. His mother dies, to begin with, leaving him dangerously alone in the real world and that much more in love with the one he sojourns through at night. He turns thirty-two for another, and soon the bruises aren't healing as quickly, and he can't get by on three hours of sleep. He looks up his old friends from college and all of them are already married with children.

"When will it be your turn, Dan?" they all ask him. "Invite us to the wedding!"

Then there's the Roche case, and Rorschach's sudden descent into silence, robbing him of his only friend. And all of the other cases that go bad suddenly follow - until at last the cops are on strike and the people are in the streets and he's standing there asking what happened to them. They were supposed to make the world a better place.

Ozymandias has already made a clean break, of course, well before anyone hears of the Keene Act, and he tells Dan to do the same. He thinks about it for a moment and then slowly removes his goggles and pushes back his cowl, extending his hand.

"Hi. I'm Dan Dreiburg."

He takes his hand warmly, gives it a strong shake that hints too much at the strength its owner possesses.

"Well done, Dan. Well done."

He leaves that meeting with a bad taste in his mouth. He can't help but feel that he's somehow played into Adrian's hand, and that it might be a hand that holds more cards than he cares to know about.

He tells Laurie next, and gets so nervous when he does so that it comes out Drei Danburg instead of Dan Dreiburg. She bursts into laughter, and the sound lights up the dingy night.

"Oh, Dan, I am going to miss you," she smiles, putting her hand on his arm. He wishes that his costume would evaporate so that he could feel that soft touch on his skin. It's been so, so long since anyone but himself touched him in tenderness and not in rage.

"Well, you'll just have to come visit me then. You know you'll be welcome any time," he smiles back, nervously. He knows she won't visit. He feels like he's clenching his hands around all of them, these Watchmen, praying that one of them, any of them, will stay at his side. He's beginning to see why he must take off the mask - but he's also beginning to see that he doesn't remember who he is underneath it.

He tells Rorschach who he is next. That ends badly, with hands around throats and words that can never be taken back. Of course that little bastard is never going to give up. He's glad that he won't. He knows someone needs to be out there, even if it isn't him. Of course it's not him. Everyone said Dreiburg's boy would turn out to be a disappointment when they were sitting in their country clubs swilling their scotch. And they were right.

He stays out as late as he can that night, knowing that it may very well be his last under the hood. He breaks up every riot he can, taking their hurled curses as his penance. He did his best, and it wasn't enough. It was never enough. He deserves their anger.

He gets home and, slowly, piece by piece, peels Nite Owl off his skin, and puts him behind the glass, a relic of what once was, and has now ceased to be. Like a dusty old suit of armor in a quiet hall somewhere in England. He understands now. He understands how things can be, and cease to be. We inevitably destroy what we love. But, still, for a few shining years, the best ones of his life, he was _someone_. He did something. He made a difference, however small. And that's something no one can take from him.

He wishes he believed that.

He gets dressed and prepares to go upstairs. He'd left the TV on before he left for the night, and now he hears the first news report of the morning blaring in the background:

"After a vote on the Senate floor this morning, the Keene Act has passed with a historical unanimous vote. The famous act has ended vigilante justice once and for all, and the masked heroes are expected to give themselves up today. Let's go to our reporter at the NYPD headquarters and see how the news is being taken there."

"It's wonderful news," a gruff, grizzly old cop with a beer gut hanging down over his belt says. "Now we can finally get back to doing our jobs."

That will be him one day - fat and old and purposeless. He stands at the top of his basement stairs, looking down on the life he is leaving behind, and knows that nothing will ever compare to it. He risked it all, and he lost it all, and, God, it hurts more than he was ever prepared for to think that maybe he should've just been a banker.

"As you can see, Eileen, the era of the costumed adventurer is truly over," the reporter says somewhere in the background, beckoning him back to the real world.

"Well, Hallelujah," he murmurs back, and turns off the lights.

_fin_

* * *

_I did my best, it wasn't much_

_I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch_

_I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool you_

_And even though it all went wrong_

_I'll stand before the Lord of Song_

_With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

_Hallelujah_

* * *

**A/N**-- Whew, sorry about the delay there, folks. Real life intervened and all that. Well, that's the end! I hope you enjoyed reading this fic as much as I enjoyed writing it. I don't know whether I'll be returning to _Watchmen_ fanfiction after this - I've got some ideas but I've got a busy summer ahead of me. Keep an eye out just in case!

Keep fighting the good fight,

Verona


End file.
